A baseball or softball batter typically swings a bat several times during a game or in practice or training. During a batter's swing, rapid acceleration and deceleration of the barrel, along with vibrations from impact with a ball, result in strong forces that can damage the fibrous connective tissues, muscles, tendons, and ligaments of the batter's hands, and can cause blisters, callouses, bruises, open wounds, and even broken bones in the hand.
Many batters wear a thin batting glove on one or both hands to try to reduce damage to their hands during a swing. But motion of the bat is still transferred through the glove into the user's hand because the hand, the glove, and the bat are all directly connected. As a result, standard thin batting gloves do not always provide adequate protection for a batter's hands.
Other batters choose to wear a thick or padded batting glove on one or both hands. The thickness or padding of the glove acts as more of a barrier or damper to forces from each swing. But the hand, the glove, and the bat remain directly connected. And the thickness or padding reduces a player's tactile gnosis, which is a cognizance-by-touch form of sensory perception. Successful athletes use tactile gnosis to relate to their equipment as an extension of their own bodies. Thick or padded gloves distance the user from the bat and reduce a batter's ability to accurately feel and control a swing. Because of these disadvantages, professional and elite batters rarely use thick or padded gloves.